Business leaders seek savior in Virginia governor's race

RICHMOND, Va. — A collection of prominent Virginia business leaders, dismayed by a 2013 governor’s race they view as a contest between a Democratic fixer and a Republican ideologue, are scrambling to draft a third contender into the race to run as an independent.

Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who dropped out of the GOP nominating contest last year, has been the main subject of public speculation. Bolling has set a mid-March deadline for deciding on an independent campaign, and said Monday there’s a “50-50” chance he will enter the race.

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Business leaders have also approached moderate former Rep. Tom Davis to gauge his interest in the race. The former Fairfax congressman has rebuffed their entreaties so far, at least in part because his wife is currently running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

But hope persists that Davis might be drawn into the race if former state legislator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis fails to win her party’s nomination at a May convention.

While power brokers in both parties have largely rallied behind their respective nominees — Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe — there remains an eclectic group of donors, based principally in Northern Virginia, who have yet to pick a side.

To them, Cuccinelli looks far too conservative and ideological; his opposition to a landmark compromise on transportation funding, backed by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, is a case in point. Two Virginia technology executives, Bobbie Kilberg and Gary Shapiro, confronted Cuccinelli at a Republican Governors Association last week about his strongly conservative message; both told POLITICO they would welcome an independent option in the 2013 race.

But the GOP-leaning executives are hardly rushing into McAuliffe’s arms, either. Though he is assiduously courting the business community, the longtime Democratic rainmaker is viewed by many as an ultra-partisan Washington insider.

“I think the business community clearly would like to see a candidate who’s more in the mainstream of the Republican Party and more in the mainstream of the Commonwealth,” Kilberg said. “I would welcome a run by Bill Bolling. I think that Bill Bolling is a strong, conservative Republican who is in the mainstream of Virginia policy and politics, and I think the business community would welcome his race.”

In an interview at his office in the state capital Monday, Bolling said he has been speaking to potential donors since the end of the legislative session this weekend to size up financial support for a possible campaign. He said he has also spoken with former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while weighing his own options for the future, though he declined to share details of their conversations.

Last month, Bolling attended an event hosted by Kilberg — a top McDonnell fundraiser — where some four dozen CEOs talked over the prospect of an independent candidacy.

Bolling, for his part, is convinced there’s a path to viability for an independent campaign. He pointed to his support for McDonnell’s transportation proposals and for a compromise on Medicaid expansion as examples of stances that would cater to the moderate center and center-right of Virginia politics.